41

In the past twenty years, the methods and the philosophy of management control have been largely renovated to adapt to strategic changes. This article shows how the discourse of the « new » management control builds oppositions which lead us to perceive it as radically different from previous methods. This has the effect of veiling the permanency, and even the tightening of older means of control. Such discursive and rhetoric devices bring legitimacy and legitimisation. This suggests that the « new » management control has an ideological dimension : it actively contributes to the perpetuation of social order in organisations.